TRUEL1F3 (TRUELIFE)

A Brotherhood posse in red cassocks had gathered on the shoreline. A group of burlier-looking thugs in black surrounded a tall woman with a greasepaint skull on her face—some kind of authority figure.

The boy and girl in the military uniforms had climbed out of the ocean onto the boardwalk, both looking exhausted. He hadn’t seen them arrive, but he’d seen what that boy had done. Zeke wouldn’t have believed it possible, but somehow, this kid had redirected the edge of a nuclear firestorm.

Cricket stood at the waterline. His WarBot body loomed eight meters tall, twelve thousand horsepower of bleeding-edge hardware. But somewhere in the last three days, he’d been repainted in Brotherhood colors—blood red and black, a bone-white skull daubed over his face. He was glaring at Ezekiel now, eyes burning a luminous blue.

The spindly logika with the luminous grin sitting on Cricket’s shoulder had called himself Solomon. Zeke knew the boy in the greasy coveralls with the slick hair was Abraham. Aside from that, he was completely in the dark.

“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?” the big WarBot demanded.

Ezekiel took a deep breath and sighed. “Nice to see you, too, Cricket.”

Solomon wrote quickly on a whiteboard so Cricket could understand his reply—the big bot had deafened himself to avoid having to take further orders from humans. Pretty smart, Zeke thought. Though he wasn’t about to tell Cricket that.

“Who are you?” Abraham asked.

“My name’s Ezekiel.”

“Not you,” Abraham replied, staring at the pair in the military uniforms. “You.”

The girl was supporting the boy’s weight, glowering at the assembled Brotherhood thugs. She had dark shadows under her eyes, fury in her glare.

“What, don’t you recognize us?” She frowned at the assembled brethren, the tall, white-clad woman leading them. “We’re the enemy.”

“You …” The dark-skinned boy with the radiation symbol shaved into his hair faltered, looking at Abraham. “You … helped me. The heat, the radiation … that I could handle. But the shockwave … you stopped it.”

Abraham shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Trashbreed filth,” one of the Brotherhood thugs muttered.

“Really?” the dark-skinned boy growled, turning on the man. “You’re gonna spew th-that purity crap now?”

The girl raised her voice over the burning wind, long bangs caught at the corners of her mouth. “In case you missed it, we’re the trashbreed filth who just saved your lives. But if it were up to me, you’d all go straight to hell.”

One of the Brotherhood boys reached for the pistol at his belt, a few more unslinging their assault rifles. Ezekiel knew Cricket couldn’t do anything to harm a human, but with a whoosh and whine of heavy servos, the WarBot scooped Abraham up and cradled him inside the shelter of his metal hands. The air around the two newcomers rippled, shivered, the boy closing his fists. More brethren reached for their guns, and Ezekiel was slowly drawing his pistol when—

“Mother, stop this!” Abraham shouted.

The boy glowered at the skull-faced woman.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” Abraham demanded, his voice trembling with anger. “Thomas, I salvaged the humidicrib your son lived inside for three months. Caleb, who built the respirator that helped your wife breathe at night? James, we’ve known each other since we were kids! Your damned purity means so much, you’re willing to murder the people who just saved your lives? Every one of you would be dead if not for us!”

Ezekiel could see tears of frustration and rage shining in the boy’s eyes as he looked among the assemblage: the thugs, the mute citizens in ruins around them and, finally, the woman who was apparently his mother.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” Abraham spat.

His words brought stillness to the scene. Ezekiel saw a few brethren sharing guilty glances, looking to their leader for direction. The woman was staring up at her son, her face unreadable beneath the smeared paint and dirt.

“Radiation’s g-gonna keep blowing in on those winds,” the dark-skinned boy told her, his eyes bruised with exhaustion. “And I’m not s-sticking around to keep them away. Considering you nailed me to a cross a few days back, you should be thanking your damn god I’ve kept them off this far. But if you care about your people, you sh-should trundle them out of here while the trundling’s good, bitch.”

The woman’s jaw tightened. A long moment passed, silent but for the whisper of poisonous winds. Ezekiel’s pistol felt like a brick in his hand.

“Brother Jonah,” the woman finally said. “Assemble the vehicles.” She raised her voice, looked to the buildings around them. “All of you, gather what provisions you can. Weapons. Water. We must leave this place, my children. And quickly.”

“But where will we go?” someone cried.

“Know no fear!” she called. “I have led you this far, haven’t I? This is all a part of God’s plan. As the chosen were led out of the desert in the Goodbook, so, too, shall we survive this exodus. Have faith, my children.” She met her son’s stare, dark eyes glittering. “The pure will prosper.”

The brethren moved swiftly at the woman’s command. The folk in the buildings about them were less certain, but as the first few shuffled away, more followed, bewildered. Ezekiel supposed they had no other option. When you’re lost in the wilderness, you follow anyone who claims to have a map.

As the brethren and citizens prepared to abandon their ruined city, Abraham and his mother simply stared at each other. Zeke could feel the weight between them. The sorrow and anger. But finally, with no other words of explanation, the woman marched off into the throng.

Ezekiel looked to the uniformed pair again. The Asiabloc girl looked utterly exhausted, and the dark-skinned boy looked even worse. If Zeke looked hard enough, he could still see a glow in his eyes, ember-soft and red.

“What are your names?” Ezekiel asked.

They looked at him curiously—the bullet holes in his chest slowly knitting closed, the metal coin slot in his flesh gleaming through the tears in his shirt. Burning winds kissed Ezekiel’s skin, the air about them still crackling and rippling.

“I’m Grimm,” said the boy, thick with WestEuro accent. “This is Diesel.”

“You’re deviates,” Abraham said.

The girl named Diesel stared up at the boy with suspicious eyes, brushing her black waterlogged bangs out of her eyes. “Ditto, kid. You wanna explain how the heir to the goddamn Brotherhood turns out to be a freak just like us?”

“Deez, we got no time for the chit or the chat,” Grimm muttered, smothering a cough. “We g-gotta get back to Lemon. BioMaas m—”

“Lemon?” Ezekiel’s heart leapt into his throat. “You know Lemon Fresh?”

Grimm blinked. “… Do you?”

“I’ve been looking for her for the past five days!” He tasted blood in his mouth, wincing as he pressed a sticky red hand to his chest. “Where is she? Is she—”

“LEMON?” The metallic shout rang over the boulevard, startling the stragglers in the buildings around them. Cricket glanced at Solomon’s whiteboard again to make sure he’d read right, then back to Grimm. “YOU KNOW LEMON FRESH?”

Diesel looked up at the WarBot, paint-smudged lips pursed.

“You’re Cricket,” she finally deduced. “The rustbucket botbuddy Lemon dragged her idiot ass out into the desert to find.” Dark eyes turned on Zeke. “Which makes you Ezekiel. You were in Paradise Falls a few days back. Killing people.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Ezekiel replied. “My brothers and sisters did the killing in the Falls, not me.”

“Mmm,” Diesel said, obviously unconvinced.

“Where is she?” Ezekiel asked.

“WHERE IS SHE?” Cricket demanded a moment later.

“She’s back at Miss O’s,” the girl said. “She’s safe.”

“She’s not s-safe,” Grimm said. “The Major said BioMaas was tracking her.”

“The Major said a lot of things, Grimm,” Diesel murmured.

“We gotta bounce,” Grimm snapped. “Sharpish.”

Blistering winds blew in from the north, the scent of death and char on the air. Grimm was already shuffling toward the square. Ezekiel felt torn, unsure which way to turn. Preacher had made off with Ana’s body, still in her cryo-tube. She was just a shell now. Those arms that had held him, those eyes that had adored him, that heart that had filled him—all of them were empty. It was as if she were as good as dead, and the thought of it almost brought him to his knees. If she was the girl who’d made him live, he wondered how he might go on without her. Wondered what the point of any of this might be. But the thought of her in Daedalus hands took hold of him, seized that empty space inside his chest and filled it with anger.

She wasn’t some trophy to be kept on a mantelpiece.

She wasn’t some test subject to be poked and prodded in some damn lab.

I can’t just leave her with them.

I can’t let it end like that …

But still, he’d made a promise to Lemon. And the thing of it was, beyond the emptiness in his eyes and the rage in his chest, Ezekiel knew this was a world where a promise didn’t count for much. Where inevitably, the people you put your faith in would let you down. But it didn’t have to be.

“I’m coming with you,” he said.

Grimm looked him over, eyes narrowed.

“She’s my friend,” Ezekiel said simply. “I made a promise to her.”

The boy glanced down again at the bullet holes in Zeke’s chest. The wounds were now all but closed, just a handful of small punctures in his olive skin.

“You’re like us,” Grimm murmured.

Ezekiel shook his head, heart aching. “I’m very different.”

Diesel and Grimm exchanged a quick glance. The girl shrugged.

“Well, you’re Lem’s crew,” the boy finally sighed. “So I s’pose you’re right by me. The deets can wait for later, we got rubber to burn.”

“I’M COMING, TOO,” Cricket said, still following the conversation on Solomon’s whiteboard.

Diesel shook her head. “Our truck won’t fit you, Rusty.”

“We have our own transport,” Abraham said. “We can follow you.”

Atop Cricket’s shoulder, Solomon tilted his head. “YOU PLAN ON TRAILING AFTER THESE … PECULIARS … INTO THE WASTELANDS, MASTER ABRAHAM?”

“It’s not like I have anyplace better to be. Unless you’re planning to …” Abraham looked at Diesel, made a popping noise, opening one fist, then another. “You know …”

The girl shook her head, her face pale and drained. “I’ve got nothing left in the tank. We’re gonna be driving regular for a while.”

“Okay.” Ezekiel looked at Abraham, glad to just have a direction and something to take his mind off the end of his road. “My bike’s trashed, can I …?”

Abraham shrugged. “Any friend of Paladin’s.”

Zeke slipped his arm under Grimm’s, hefting his weight. The boy nodded thanks, and the group shuffled from the boardwalk out into the bedlam of the town square. Brotherhood members were shouting orders, directing a convoy of trucks, 4x4s and bikes laden with gear and people. The air stank of distant smoke and ashes, methane exhaust and fire. The rev of rusty motors filled the air.

Ezekiel helped Grimm and Diesel up into the truck’s cabin, the boy cursing as he struggled in. The pair looked like twenty klicks of rough road.

“Can either of you drive?” the lifelike asked softly.

“If you’re offering to chauffeur,” Diesel relented, “I wouldn’t say no.”

“Ezekiel!”

The scream rang out over the throng, the rising motors, the chatter and the fear. Zeke turned and saw the shell-shocked citizens parting before a limping, broken figure. Ezekiel’s heart twisted at the sight of her.

Faith …

Drenched with red, the lifelike looked like she’d been through a meat grinder. Her legs and stomach had been crushed under some colossal weight, and though they were slowly healing, her wounds were still horrifying. She’d twisted some metal pipes into crutches to help her walk. Her dark bangs were soaked with blood, hanging over wild gray eyes.

Cricket’s metallic roar rang on the broken walls.

“FAITH!”

A chaingun in the WarBot’s forearm unfolded, spinning up with a deadly electric whine. Citizens scattered as Cricket stomped toward the crippled lifelike. But Faith’s eyes were fixed on Ezekiel, tears rolling down her bloodstained cheeks.

“Ze-eke,” she whispered.

She staggered, slipping onto her ruined knees. Falling in slow motion like a broken doll, like a puppet with its strings sheared through.

Zeke was at her side before he knew he was moving, catching her, sinking down with her in his embrace. Cricket roared at him to get out of the way. But Zeke stayed where he was, Faith in his arms as she struggled to speak.

“They t-took him …,” she said. “Gabriel …”

“I know,” he nodded.

Faith swallowed, tears in her eyes. “W-we have to get him b-back.”

“Where’s Verity?” Ezekiel asked.

Faith tried to speak, choked on a bubble of blood. Instead, she raised one shaking hand, pointed over Ezekiel’s shoulder. Zeke glanced behind, saw Cricket’s towering form blotting out the light. The WarBot’s eyes burned blue, his chaingun aimed square at Faith’s chest.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY, EZEKIEL,” the big bot growled. “I THOUGHT I KILLED THAT HOMICIDAL MANIAC IN THE WARDOME. I’LL MAKE DAMN SURE THIS TIME.”

Ezekiel realized Verity was dead. That Cricket must have destroyed her. That of the original twelve lifelike models, only he, Gabriel and Faith remained. Looking down at Faith, broken and bloodied in his arms, he felt his heart sinking.

He knew she wasn’t a good person. She’d murdered Olivia, the eldest Monrova daughter, right in front of him—just lifted her pistol and blew the girl’s brains all over the floor. She’d been happy to stand by while Gabriel killed Silas, almost killed Eve. She and the others had murdered countless people in their search for Ana’s body. Who knew what other atrocities Faith had committed since she stood at the windows in Babel, looking out with wonder on her first dawn?

It’s so beautiful, she’d whispered.

On paper, this was a simple deal.

On paper, he should just let her go.

“Zeke.” She touched his cheek with red fingertips. “P-please …”

Ezekiel had put faith in people before. And all he’d got for it was a knife in his back. A bullet in his heart. A metal coin slot in his chest.

“SHE HELPED KILL SILAS, EZEKIEL,” the big WarBot spat. “SHE TRIED TO KILL LEMON, EVIE, ME AND YOU. SHE’S A MURDERER.”

Ezekiel looked up at Cricket, a scowl darkening his brow. He knew the logika couldn’t hear him through his damaged aural arrays. And Ezekiel suspected he wouldn’t have listened anyway. But there in the New Bethlehem square, the taste of a mushroom-shaped cloud on his tongue, surrounded by all the worst the world had to offer, Ezekiel realized the kind of person he could be.

He could be the kind who had faith when he had every reason not to. The kind who believed in others even when they kept letting him down. The kind who chose to think that everyone had some good in them, somewhere.

Or he could be the kind of person who sat by while someone killed the only sister he had left.

Ezekiel stood, a bloodied and broken Faith in his arms. He met the logika’s eyes and fancied he could see rage, burning bright and blue in that plastic and glass. Cricket’s titanic hands curled into mighty fists. But they didn’t fall.

“She’s family,” Ezekiel said.

And he turned and walked away.

3.3

PULSE

It took a moment for Eve to realize where she was.

The lights were pin-bright and blinding. A crowd stomping and cheering. She could feel their thunder through the metal around her, butterflies in her belly. The dark was full of wild eyes and ethyl grins, Corp logos shining on glitching vidscreens. But it was the smell that brought it home to her at last—the oil and methane smoke, scorched plastic and fresh sweat.

WarDome.

She was snug inside her machina, the controls lit up in a rolling rainbow. The old leather of her pilot’s chair creaked as she flexed her fingers inside her gloves. High above the ring, she saw the EmCee in her sequined top hat and tails.

“And now, gamblers and raaaaamblers,” she cried. “Our champion, weighing in at thirty-eight tons! Get yourselves hoarse for Miss Combobulation!”

Eve raised her arm in her control sleeve, and her machina did the same. The crowd screamed in reply, elation washing over her in waves. She looked into the stands and spotted a tiny girl in an ancient, oversized leather jacket. A jagged bob of cherry-red hair. A spattering of freckles. A small hand in a fingerless glove waved at her through the WarDome bars.

“Lemon,” she whispered, smiling.

“Riotgrrrrrl!” her bestest grinned, throwing up the horns.

Eve could see Cricket sitting on the girl’s shoulder, the rusty little logika waving, his boggle eyes alight. At her feet, Kaiser sat with his mouth open, heat-sink tongue lolling between his teeth. And beside him, an old man with a shock of gray hair. Eyes sharp as laser scalpels, ice blue and filled with love.

Eve felt light as air, relief swelling in her chest, a sense that everything would finally and truly be okay. She was where she belonged. She was back where it started, the place people knew her, not just her name.

She was home.

Her grandpa looked at her and grinned. “Go get her, kiddo!”

“Aaaaaaaand now,” the EmCee shouted, “our challenger! Representing Gnosis Laboratories in her first professional bout, weighing in at sixty-three kilos—make some noise, won’t you, for Miss Ana Monrovaaaaaa!”

A pulse of blood-red light rolled over the scene. The cheering and stomping fell silent, the blinding lights died. A single spotlight remained, piercing the gloom like a spear. And standing in it, bathed in light, Eve saw herself.

A version of herself, anyway, with longer hair and paler skin and softer eyes. The girl she was made to replace. The design she was copied from.

Ana Monrova looked up at Eve, her hazel eyes shining. She was empty-handed, wearing a simple white shift, and Eve was encased inside a twenty-foot-tall killing machine. But still, Eve felt a sliver of fear pierce her belly at the sight of that girl. A cold chill running across her skin.

She’d hunted all over the Yousay for Ana Monrova. Intent on killing her, silencing her voice inside her head, proving once and for all she was more than this empty shell she was built to replace.

That blood-red pulse washed the sky again.

Eve felt a stab of pain behind her eyes.

“Who are you?” Ana asked her.

“I’m me,” Eve replied, hands in fists. “I’m me.”

The girl tilted her head, long golden tresses spilling over her face.

“But who do you want to be?”

It took a moment for Eve to realize where she was.

The light was low and summer-warm. The silence soft and complete. She could see a broad window looking out on a murky night sky, white sheets around her feet. She could feel warmth pressed against her, butterflies moving in a long, languid dance inside her belly. But it was the smell that brought it home at last—the faded flowers and faint metal, warm breath and fresh sweat.

Ezekiel.

His hands were on her waist, and her arms around his neck, her fingertips weaving through his dark curls. His chest was hard against hers, and his lips were soft, skimming the line of her jaw and sending flushes of flame all the way down to her toes. She could feel his long lashes fluttering against her skin. They were in her bed, she realized. Bare and smooth and spent—that night he’d first come to her room before her world fell apart.

Her mouth found his, and his lips opened against hers, and for a moment, the ache of it was so sweet, it was all she was. The soft velvet of his kiss, the hard swell of his shoulder, her hands trailing down over the lines and furrows of his back and lower, lower still. She’d given all of herself to him, lost between the sighs and wrapped in the want, honey-sweet and secret-deep. She knew that this wasn’t made to last, that a life lived in the dark was half a life at best. But though he’d been made, not grown, this beautiful boy with an angel’s name was more real in that moment than anything else in her world. And if she were only to have half a life, let it be this half, she begged. One where she was happy and she was adored and she was real. Real as the almost-boy in her arms.

They eased away from each other, and the ache only deepened as she felt the places he’d been, now without him. For a moment, she wondered what use her lips were if they weren’t pressed against his. What point there was to her hands if they weren’t touching him. But then she looked up into his eyes, beautiful, blue, bright, and though they were full of love, framed by dusk-dark lashes and shining in the dark, she couldn’t help but remember he’d never, ever looked at her this way.

“All I am,” he said. “All I do, I do for you.”

“You never said that to me,” she told him.

Eve pushed away from Ezekiel, rolling out of the bed—a bed she’d never slept in, a night she’d never shared. She clutched a sheet she’d never touched about herself, looked around this room that was never hers, this boy she’d never loved.

Ezekiel held out his hand, his voice low and sweet with promise.

“Come back to bed.”

“Come back?” She almost laughed. “We were never together like this.”

He smiled at her, rising from the crumpled mattress. “Like this, then?”

Blood-red light pulsed, a thrust of pain crackled in her skull. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her oversized boots digging into the small of his back as she crushed herself against him. They were in the workshop in Faith’s mission back in Armada, oil smudged on her skin and iron in the air. A fire was burning inside her, not soft and slow and sweet this time. No, this was gasoline and nitro, this was rage and want and teeth and bare skin on dirty concrete and fingernails clawing at his back and right, so right.

This had been real, she knew. This had been hers.

And so had he.

“Eve,” he murmured, breath hot against her skin. “Eve.”

“No,” she breathed. “Call me Ana …”

He lifted his head, looked at her with those pretty sky-blue eyes.

“Make up your mind,” he said. “Who do you want to be?”

It took a moment for Eve to realize where she was.

She was standing on a beach neither she nor the girl she’d been had ever visited. It was the kind of beach they used to put on postcards, back when there still was a post and people put cards into it.

Waves lapped at her ankles, shiver-cool on her skin. Not the black chemsludge that had slurped and sucked on the broken shores of Dregs. No, this was a beautiful blue, like sapphires and tumbling diamonds. The sand was cotton-soft between her toes, and there were no rusting auto hulks or discarded fridges or polystyrene scum. The sky was blue, clean, so bright it hurt her eyes to look at.

She was wearing loose white linen, just as spotless as the sand. The cool wind whispered in off the water and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She could smell hot food sizzling somewhere nearby, hear distant music of a shape and tone she’d never known.

“I’m dreaming,” she realized.

“If you like, yes,” came a voice behind her.